Imaginary Barbeque
a mississippi camelot fantasy
Writers like to imagine things. Sometimes they keep imagining them for a long time. Lewis spent years thinking about Narnia and wrote seven books. I like to dream about Mississippi Camelot. Ninety percent of it is real, ten percent is imaginary. You can tell which is which with Wikipedia. For a place nobody wants to visit, they write about us a lot.
One thing I imagine is businesses. You can blame the Else School of Management at Millsaps College, but mostly you should blame my dad.
“You know what we need here?”
“What?”
“A steel mill.”
“Why?”
“Because there’s lots of water, the interstate is right there, and the Mississippi River is right there.”
Most of his musings were about how to make things better here. So were (and are) mine.
Daddy loved barbecue. One time, we drove to and from Batesville to check on a massive set of new bleachers we were installing there. We had an old guy named Andrew Pate who was an expert at installing bleachers and auditoriums. One leg was almost an inch shorter than the other. That didn’t stop him.
Based on reports from Bob Hearin, we ate barbecue five times between Jackson and Batesville and back.
I get accused of including names and not explaining who they are. Bob Hearin was the head of First National Bank, which became known as Trustmark because Jeanne Luckett willed it into being. Besides the bank, he controlled all the companies in its spiderweb, and a few others, just because he thought they were cool, like the Yazoo “Big Wheel” Mower Company.
Bob Hearin was, at one time, the richest man in Mississippi. He liked to drive around by himself a lot. He ate a lot of barbecue. What they say about Mississippi gas stations is unquestionably true. Some people hated Bob Hearin; one of them killed his wife. I loved him, and I loved her. Jesus told me to forgive the man who killed her. I didn’t.
This is a bit of Campbell Family trivia you probably don’t need to know. Ben Lampton was killed in the UK because of an asshole with a truck. Without a successor, Bob Hearin asked my Daddy. He said he couldn’t leave his daddy, so Bob Hearin turned to a man named Brum, who was literally my dad’s fourth-best friend in a *very* tight-knit group.
His name wasn’t really Brum. It was Frank, but I never saw anybody who knew him call him Frank. A lot of you are young, so you have no idea who he is. Look up “Lucky Day Foundation.” Some of you are a few years older than me and dated him once or twice, but only once or twice. He only ever loved one woman, but he was stubborn, and so was she. Brum loved barbeque too, and whiskey, and women, and Mississippi, and Ole Miss Rebuls.
Some of the businesses I imagine are restaurants. I love resturants. Duh. Look at me. I tasted a lot of barbecue on the advice of Rowan Taylor, Bob Hearin, and Brum Day. When I lived in Rankin County, I’d find places and bring my daddy some.
One day, driving between Jackson and Raymond on Highway Eighteen, going to see Clyde Muse and learn something about world history and girls who weren’t that bright but had remarkable hair, I passed Wells Road where my Uncle Boyd’s Lazy Log Lodge had been, and imagined a barbecue stand, and a gas station.
I called it “Smokey Joe's Barbeque and Breakfast,” after my brother Joe, because he liked to cook, he liked to eat, and he liked to smoke. You can interpret that however you please. I liked those things too.
As time wore on, it evolved into a second imaginary location, in Downtown Jackson. SN Thomas Drygoods Wholesale had a remarkable headquarters on Pearl and Roach. It took up a whole block. The Thomas’s were a remarkable Lebanese family that found their fortune in Jackson. Their girls were sublime. One in particular I would follow with my eyes and my imagination.
Dry Goods was a pretty solid business to be in before Walmart came along. I was a Republican then. I believed in free markets, but I also believed in protecting big states from small states. It worked out pretty well from Roosevelt to Reagan. Reagan had other ideas. Changing the rules on how you capitalized a business and how you borrowed money across state lines, Reagan made it possible for people like Sam Walton to destroy companies like SN Thomas and Sons, but also The Watts Company in Columbia, Mississppi, where my Uncle and his nephew did everything he could to save it, including putting up his Missco stock as collateral, which caused a problem when it went bad. Again, that’s Campbell Family trivia you’re probably not interested in. Still, it’s part of the story, and they tried. They really did.
The three blocks from Capitol to Pascagoula and from Farish to the Viaduct were, and are a legendary part of Jackson. I imagined being part of an entertainment district that included the Mayflower, renovated King Edward, the Standard Life, and the People’s Cafe. I wanted to find somebody who would rent or buy the Orkin building and make it an upscale gay bar. (It had been one before.) The Mayflower could stay open till three, like they used to. Whatever you might think, drag queens eating pie and fries at the Mayflower at one am isn’t something I had to imagine. I saw it.
S.N. Thomas had a beautiful Art Deco Pearl Street entrance, with glass bricks and a cinema entrance.
It had three buildings. One I imagined would be a small music venue. Pitting a music venue at this end of downtown with one at Hal and Mals, I thought might build something. The back of that would be video games, pinball, and pool tables.
The middle building would be the smokehouse, with glass windows so you could see the action. One room for smoke, and one room for the kitchen. Besides that, a bar made from doors like the one at CS’s. The walls are decorated with eclectic Mississippi Ephemera, like CS’s.
The easternmost building would be the restaurant, with a patio. The entire compound would be surrounded by a wrought iron fence, fancier than the one at Millsaps. Closed at one and opened at six, cars parked on the Pascagoula side.
Inside the restaurant, I imagined a giant terrarium with blue gill, catfish, and crappie, along with a few red ear sliders. Filled with native Mississippi marsh plants. Low-light plants decorate the walls, and a Garden-Scale train circles the top, like at Fennians.
With such an enormous flat roof, I imagined solar panels, a raised bed, a greenhouse, and hydroponic gardens, surrounded by roses. Quail hutches and a chicken coop provide fresh eggs and fresh quail, but not fresh chicken.
I’ve spent years developing the menu. I know enough about restaurants to know this is impossible economically. It would require a gigantic staff with French chef hats, blue striped aprons, gloves, and friendly but grumpy people who called you “baby.” Still, a man’s reach should exceed his grasp.
A menu with four broadsides should be big enough. Covered in clear vinyl, the prices changed, but not the intent.
Welcome to Smokey Joes
Barbeque and Breakfast
We raise our own vegetables – but not our own pigs
Children are welcome until 9 pm – Your mean as hell aunt ain't
We misspell things
Be nice to your server – She knows voodoo
Drive through available
Breakfast
Eggs
Fried (sunny side up, runny yolk)
Scrambled
Boiled
Poached
Omlette
Add cheese, diced onions, ham, spinach, tomato, green peppers
Breads
Cathead Buttermilk Biscuit
Toast (White - Wheat)
Mississippi blueberry muffins
Cinnamon toast
French toast (deep fried)
Biscuit sandwiches
Bacon, ham, sausage, chicken strip
Add: cheese, egg
Griddle bread
Pancakes
Waffles
Serve with
Mississippi blueberries
Louisiana strawberries
Chocolate chips
Bananas
Mississippi pecans
Whipped cream
Cane syrup
Mississippi honey
To drink
Coffee
Decaf (we won’t tell)
Soft drinks
Juices: orange, grape, apple, tomato
Whole milk
2% milk
From the bar (we won't tell on you before noon)
Bloody Mary
Mamosa
Lunch-Dinner-Late night
From the smoker
Pork
Pulled pork
Pork sausage
St Louis-style ribs
Pork chops
Bacon (we make our own)
Ham (we make our own)
Beef
Brisket (Texas don’t know nothin’)
Foul Fowl
½ chicken
Pulled chicken
Turkey breast
Turkey leg
Quail (we grow our own)
Fish
Smoked catfish
Smoked catfish dip - saltines
Fried
Chicken strips
Catfish nuggets
Corn Dog
Grilled
Hamburger (we grind our own served rare, medium, well)
Cheese burger, Inez burger, baby burger (sliders sold in pairs)
Add Bacon, tomato, red onion,
Dill pickle, bread and butter pickles (we make our own)
Cheddar cheese, Swiss cheese, chili, cheese sauce
Sauteed white onion, gravy, SaladDays bib lettuce,
Mayonnaise, yellow mustard, brown mustard,
Comeback, Green comeback, Ketchup,
Memories of your momma are free
Eggs
Boiled chicken eggs
Deviled eggs (two halves - one egg)
Pickled quail eggs (two)
Scotch Eggs (our own eggs, our own sausage)
Hot Tamales (a Mississippi specialty)
Beef
Pork
Turkey thigh
Spinach
Add sour cream. Cheese. Pickled onions. Red onions. Saltines.
By the Bowl
Chilli (no beans)
Add cheese, rice, red onion, jalapeno
Red beans and rice (no chili)
Add extra sausage,
Cheese, red onion, pulled pork, jalapeno
Broccoli and cheese
Mississippi vegetable
Sides
Carbohydrates
Potato's - Mashed with gravy
Potato's - fried
With gravy, cheese sauce, chili
Potato Salad with mustard
Rice with gravy
Baked macaroni and cheese
Fried onion rings
Boiled peanuts
Skillet corn bread
Schoolhouse roll
Popcorn still one penny per bag
We grow our own fruit and vegetables
See sign or waiter for what's in season
Greens
Sauteed spinach
Stewed mixed greens
SaladDays mixed greens salad
Cole Slaw
Veggies
Italian flat beans
Crookneck squash (roast or fried)
Lima beans
Lady peas
Fried dill pickles (we make our own)
Fruit
Sliced beef steak tomato
(with mayonnaise or oil and vinegar)
Fried green tomato
Fried eggplant
Smith county watermelon
Sauces
Barbeque
Comeback
Green comeback
Ranch
Desserts (we won't ask if you deserve dessert)
Banana pudding
Rice pudding
Chocolate chest pie
Boiled custard - vanilla wafers
Mississippi Pecan chocolate pie
Soft drinks
Barques root beer
Coke
Diet coke
Sprite
Lemonade (we make our own)
Strawberry/blueberry lemonade (we make our own)
Sweet tea (don't you make your own?)
Ice tea (sweeten it your own damn self)
Hot green tea
Beers
Local: fertile ground by the pint
Store bought: Budweiser, Bud light, Miller High Life,
Coors, Coors light, Pabst blue Ribbon,
Jobie Martin Schlitz, Heinikin
Coffee is free if you bring a book. We won't tell if you drink decaf.
We have a full-service bar. Ladies drink half price on Tuesday.
(We’ll take your word on the lady thing.)
Ask about cathead specials.
Jukebox in the back. Music curated by Pitmaster and Daryl.
One quarter - two songs. Forever
Yes some rap but no gangsta. Mississippi artists in red.
Pool and viddeya games in the back
Chess boards, backgammon and checkers available by request
We love you like your daddy loved your momma
Be kind - we mean it
Sit at the bar sit at the table sit on the patio sit in your car we don't care
Children sitting at the bar will not be served alcohol
Your uncle Daryl sitting at the bar will not be served alcohol. He knows why.
If your wife calls at the bar tell us what to say
Dogs allowed on patio
Wives allowed anywhere they damn well please
Thank you for visiting - please come again
Call your momma - I wish I could call mine
